It's hard to study something that hasn't been around for a long time, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting! For example, what do you know about dinosaurs? When do you think dinosaurs with long necks lived? What were they called, what was their lifestyle?
Long-necked Animal
An old children's song is about a giraffe, but today you will get acquainted with the life of a much more ancient representative of the animal world. Let's talk about a group of four-legged herbivorous dinosaurs. More precisely, our today's heroes are dinosaurs with a long neck that lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. This group of animals was called "sauropods", which means "lizard-footed dinosaurs" in Latin.
Despite the fact that sauropods are completely extinct, scientists were able to determine that these animals lived everywhere, there were at least 130 species, which were divided into 13 families and 70 genera.
General description of the species
The long-necked herbivorous dinosaur was gigantic in size. The neck of the animal could be from 9 to 11 m long, but the head is quite small. A tiny brain was placed in a tiny cranium. It was found that the sacral brain of the animal was 20 times larger than the head. The teeth of these dinosaurswere spatula-shaped, rather small in size. Despite the name, the legs of the animals bore no resemblance to the legs of lizards. Rather, there was a resemblance to the legs of elephants. The forelimbs were always longer than the hind limbs. They all had massive tails.
As you can imagine, long-necked dinosaurs don't live in the neighboring zoo. All data on these animals were painstakingly restored by paleontologists from the remains found. The rarest find for scientists is the skull of a sauropod. This part of the skeleton is rarely found during excavations, and it does not come across at all as a whole.
Lifestyle
Dinosaurs with long necks can be considered phytophages. This means that they ate plant foods. Paleontologists have suggested that they did not chew plants, but ground them with swallowed stones.
The easiest way to guess is that sauropods used their necks to reach high treetops. But this theory is criticized by scientists, because they calculated what the blood pressure of the animal had to be in order to be able to perform such actions. Calculations show that this would require an unreasonably high energy consumption. In addition, the animal must have had a very large heart.
Another hypothesis says that sauropods led a herd life. It is based on the fact that paleontologists most often find a group of remains.
It is believed that the long-necked dinosaurs were very slow. Presumably they moved at a speed of no higher than 5 km / h. This is associated with the weight and size of the animal.
Description of individual species. Diplodocus
Diplodocus is the most famous dinosaur with a long neck. This genus received its name from the American paleontologist C. Marsh back in 1878. The name itself reflected the structural features of the animal's tail.
Diplodocus has long been considered a real giant, even among dinosaurs. According to the calculations of one of the scientists, its dimensions could exceed 54 m, and its weight could reach 113 tons. But he made a mistake in the number of vertebrae, and the real dimensions turned out to be much smaller. The largest remains confirmed the length of 35 m. The weight has not yet succumbed to an exact calculation, presumably it is from 20 to 80 tons.
The remains of diplodocus have been found quite often, so this species is considered the most studied. The London Natural History Museum has a copy of the Diplodocus skeleton. So photos of dinosaurs with long necks can be taken there.
Brachiosaurus
At the end of the Jurassic, another sauropod lived, called the brachiosaurus. It can be translated as "shouldered lizard". This animal lived in the territories where North America and Africa are located today.
Brachiosaurus, like all sauropods, had a small head. But it was adorned with a bone crest just above the eyes. Presumably, the nostrils connected by an air sac were placed on the crest. Maybe even the lizard had a small trunk. The front legs were much longer than the hind legs, and in general the view was very reminiscent of a huge giraffe. Only the neck was not pulled up, but moved forward by about 45 °.
The height of this animal has not been precisely established. Presumably - 11-15 m. And the length from the head to the tip of the tail - 22-27 m. Weight - within 22-60 tons.
The skeleton of this dinosaur is on display at the Humboldt Museum in Berlin.
